


living love in slow motion

by miss_tatiana



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men (Original Timeline Movies), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, and tbh??? ignoring the movies dumb decision to make kitty and rogue straight too, canon spin off, im ignoring the movies dumb decision to make bobby straight, set during last stand some time after charles' death, theyre in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 08:55:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13337790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_tatiana/pseuds/miss_tatiana
Summary: What better way to resolve confusion over a boy than to start hanging out together and without him? Kitty and Rogue spend more and more time together after they both end up as just friends with Bobby, and they grow close. When Kitty figures out a way she can get around Rogue's powers and touch her, what else is there to do but try it out?





	living love in slow motion

**Author's Note:**

> title from like an old ed sheeran song or some shit. anyways id die for these gays and i love them. this is a gift for @warren-kepler on tumblr, hope you like it!!

It was so hard for Rogue to pretend she hadn’t seen Kitty with her- well, with the guy she knew she should love. She still shared a smile with Kitty when they passed in the hall, and she still told Bobby she wished she could hold his hand, but there was a tension there that hadn’t existed before. 

Or maybe it had, but it had been building in her subconscious and just now she was realizing it. That was a sickening thought, although she couldn’t put her finger on why. It was like she had this tight, nervous feeling in her stomach, and even when she was trying not to think about it, or had to be focusing on other things, it was still in the back of her mind.

She’d known she and Bobby weren’t going anywhere, and not just because of emotional stuff. How could you get close to someone you could never touch? But what he did felt wrong, like he’d handled it badly, and he should have at least tried to do it right. It felt like he’d given up on her, in a way. She told herself that she was being melodramatic, and that it was her fault he wasn’t interested, but then again how was it her fault? How was it on her if she didn’t want to see Bobby go the same way her last boyfriend went?

It was exhausting, not being able to touch anyone. It was tiring, and it clearly, obviously had consequences even when she was trying to be careful. 

And now she was trapped in some liminal space, some pocket dimension where she could feel herself drifting away from the people she cared about but she couldn’t do anything to prevent it. And everything around her was moving, it was moving faster than she wanted to think about, and just a few months ago everything had been fine and she’d had a solid group of friends and all the teachers were trying their best and things seemed as normal as they could get and now it was all gone. Charles was dead, Jean was dead, John took off, Bobby was acting like he didn’t know her, and Scott was around less than Logan, who was still gone for considerable amounts of time, and-

“Hey, Rogue? You okay?” 

Rogue looked up. “Yeah, I’m fine.” 

Kitty sat down next to her on the couch in one of the living rooms of the school. “The TV’s not on,” she said, her voice soft. 

Rogue blinked. She’d been staring at a black, dead screen and hadn’t even noticed. She rubbed her eyes. “Sorry, I didn’t notice that.”

“Is something up?” asked Kitty. She sounded genuinely concerned. 

“Not anything out of the ordinary, I guess.” Rogue shrugged. She wanted to be angry with Kitty for coming to her and pretending like nothing had happened, but the only person she could find it in herself to be mad at was Bobby. 

“Yeah, okay, um.” Kitty was fiddling with the ends of her hair, something she did when she was nervous. “I sort of have something to tell you.”

Rogue felt her mouth twisting up, and she couldn’t get any words out. 

“So the night after the funeral- I didn’t- he came to me, I just-” Kitty was staring at the ground, and she looked like she might be close to tears. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think about it, okay?”

“What?” Rogue knew, of course, exactly what she was talking about. The fact that she was saying anything at all was just so shocking, seemed so out of the ordinary, that Rogue didn’t know how to react. 

Kitty’s head was in her hands. “Bobby- like- made the fountain into ice and we skated on it and- I’m so sorry.”

“You didn’t kiss him?” That threw Rogue for another loop. 

“No,” Kitty moaned, sounding completely miserable. 

There was a moment of silence as Rogue processed it. “Can I tell you something?” she asked tentatively. 

Kitty shrugged. 

“Me and Bobby weren’t gonna work out.” It was the first time she’d said that out loud, and instead of feeling worse, like she’d pictured she would, she almost felt relieved, like there was a weight off her shoulders. “I didn’t even really like him as anything but a friend, but I felt like I should say yes when he asked me out, and…” She laid a hand on Kitty’s shoulder, over her sweatshirt. “You guys would- you’d be better, I think. I’m not going to stop you.”

“I don’t even like him that way!” Kitty wiped her eyes. “That’s the worst part, I just needed someone to talk to.” 

Rogue laughed, a slow chuckle of disbelief. “We need to hang out more.”

Kitty sniffed. “Are you serious? You’re not going to kill me with your hands?”

Rogue shook her head. 

And Kitty, to Rogue’s surprise, leaned her head on Rogue’s shoulder, careful to let her hair cushion any parts of her face that threatened to touch Rogue’s neck. 

They did hang out more in the following weeks, as Rogue suggested, sometimes with Bobby - although the conversation was often about John then, and therefore upsetting - and sometimes without. They’d settled everything with Bobby, of course, and it wasn’t like he really minded. He couldn’t stop thinking about someone else anyways.

After a dinner date somewhere Storm deemed safe and inconspicuous when they’d asked her for permission to go out, Kitty and Rogue headed back to the borrowed car they'd taken. 

“Thanks for putting up with me,” Kitty murmured, and she leaned against the passenger side door, blocking Rogue from getting in. 

“Are you kidding?” Rogue chuckled. “Thank you for putting up with me, more like.”

“No, like, I’m serious.” Kitty did sound serious. “No one else at school-”

“Everyone loves you, Kitty,” said Rogue, and it was true. She’d never met someone who really disliked Kitty. Well, maybe John had, but he hadn’t ever talked to her, and he was… gone, now. 

“But no one gets to know me,” Kitty argued. “I know everyone’s name and they know mine but that’s it. That’s as far as it goes.” She shrugged. “It’s not a big deal, but…” And then she shrugged again. 

Rogue didn’t know what to say. She’d genuinely always believed Kitty was close with everyone at school, and it was difficult to think of Kitty feeling alone. For one, Kitty didn’t deserve to feel alone, not ever, and for two, why would anyone meet Kitty and not want to know more about her? Even during those awkward months when she was with Bobby, Rogue was always eager to have a conversation with her. 

“Yeah, forget I said anything.” Kitty pulled open the passenger door. “Let’s head out.”

“Wait,” Rogue said, nervous that once she started talking, she wouldn’t be able to stop. She started anyways, though, not in control of her words just like she wasn’t in control of so many other aspects of her life. “Does it really matter how many people at school you’re friends with? As long as you have a few close friends, you should be fine, and- I know I sound like a mom, but if just a couple of people care about you enough to make up for a whole school, that can sometimes be even better, right?”

Kitty rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but who-”

“Some girl who ran away from home,” Rogue said quickly. “With dumb hair and a dumb accent who dated her gay best friend and wears too much green.” 

“Shut up,” Kitty murmured, but she was blushing, the light from the diner windows they were parked in front of gave it away. 

“I do, though,” Rogue insisted, feeling oddly sure of herself but at the same time like she was floating miles above the ground.

“Oh my god,” Kitty said, like she was talking to herself, and she leaned back against the car door again. “Can I kiss you?”

Rogue snorted on impulse, because her heart was beating so loudly she was sure Kitty could hear it and she had to cover it up with something. Also, it was a ridiculous question. Kitty knew she couldn’t, and shouldn’t bother asking. “Obviously not, I mean… you’re the last person I want to hurt right now.” She laughed quietly, trying to alleviate how bad she felt about it. 

“The absorption thing, that’s your power, right?” Kitty already knew it was her power. “So why don’t I just use my power and cancel it out?”

“How?” Rogue saw Kitty jumping through the walls of the danger room during training sessions in her mind. “Are you going to phase through me?”

“I could phase… on you? If that makes sense,” Kitty attempted, tucking her hair behind her ears, a sign that she was going into a technical explanation of something far too confusing for Rogue to understand. “So when I phase, my particles are sort of slipping between the particles of another thing. According to the atomic theory, everything in the universe is made of atoms so technically nothing is solid, and my power allows me to move molecularly super close to those atoms without actually touching them. I think it would work.” She stopped, knowing she’d gone too science. “I just really want to kiss you.”

Rogue thought about rationalizing this, then thought better of it. “Yeah, sure. Go for it, I mean, worse comes to worst, at least you taught me how to drive stick shift so I can take you back to the Institute.”

Kitty smiled like she was going to laugh, but it never came out. She wiped her palms on her jeans. “Okay, here goes.”

Rogue let Kitty take her hands - gloved, of course - and pull her closer, and then they were kissing. At first, it felt like a normal kiss, or what she could remember of normal kisses, but then, as she became more aware of it, it felt different. More tingly, for certain, almost like her lips were feeling what static sounded like, but in the best way possible. 

After much too short a time, Kitty pulled away. “I’m not dead.”

“You’re not dead,” Rogue breathed in agreement. “Can you do that again?”

“Can I drive you home first?” Kitty asked, lips slightly redder than usual as she smiled and gestured to the car behind her. 

Rogue nodded, and got into the passenger seat when Kitty opened the car door for her. “You know,” she said, once they’d started the drive back to the school, “I’m super glad you guilt tripped yourself into coming and talking to me.” 

“When was that, a month ago?” Kitty asked nonchalantly.

“It must be more, now,” Rogue replied. “But I’m serious, none of this would have happened if you hadn’t felt really bad about skating with Bobby Drake, and-”

Kitty threw back her head and laughed as they came to a halt at a red light. “Oh my god.” 

Rogue laughed as well, just softer and less wildly. “But now we’re here. And- I’ve never kissed someone who didn’t get hurt because of it, and-”

“Thank you for that, by the way,” Kitty added in. 

“No, thank you,” Rogue insisted. 

“Seriously? It was my pleasure,” Kitty said, her voice jovial and easy, like she was never scared of the possibility of the phasing trick not working. 

Rogue tried not to be too lovesick, or whatever this was she was feeling, but she couldn’t help herself. Kitty was beautiful and funny and she always knew the right thing to say at the right time, she was kind and strong and brilliant and powerful. “So what’s the plan?” she asked, as they pulled into the long driveway of the school. 

“I park this baby in the garage and neither of us tell Scott it ever left,” Kitty said, bringing the car into its spot between the motorcycle that was basically Logan’s now and one of the big black cars Storm used to drive Charles around in. “And then we head up to my room, not yours, because goth furnishings might kill the mood right now, and we-” She shrugged, turning the car off. “-pick up where we left off.” She looked at Rogue, waiting for approval. 

Rogue was smiling too widely to speak for a few moments, and when she did, it was just a simple, “sounds good to me,” but that said it all perfectly. 

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me abt gay xmen on tumblr @belkittykelly  
> comments always appreciated!!


End file.
